Your guide to creating a professional CV Resume

The following tips apply to all occupational types.

Appreciate, the more senior the role, the greater the expectation of those in the hiring seat and the tougher the competition, and as time progresses – expectations become higher!
The CV Resume you styled up 5 years ago, and to which you may be tempted to update with your most recent employment, may not be good enough in the present day.

What do you include and in what order do you put it?

Name and contact info

Personal or professional profile

Educational qualifications (this can be placed at the end of the CV, see later)

Achievements or accomplishments in the role, with the accent on the positive

What happened 10 years ago is far less relevant, so the further back you go in time, the less need for detail – a first job might simply state: employer name, job title and employment dates.

Professional training

Hobbies & interests, at the end of the CV, in the USA standard practice is that this info is excluded

The reader will expect to read a CV in the above format, if you veer away from this, the reader may find themselves having to make an extra effort to read it and therefore you risk losing their interest / alienating them.

There are two types of CV Resumes, the chronological CV and the functional one.

The chronological CV Resume outlines employment history in reverse chronological order and is the one most widely used. Functional CV Resumes typically present experience, skills and accomplishments first which often means to the reader, that it is not obvious what they did where or when nor for how long – many people reading CVs find this irritating!

Functional CVs are commonly used by people: making a career transition, returning to work or who have had a succession of jobs in a short period of time. This article focuses on Chronological CVs.

If you would like to know more about Functional CV Resumes, including what they’re all about and an example? – Click here Functional CV Resume

Caution:

If you are thinking of creating and using a Functional CV Resume we recommended you avoid doing so solo, and seek professional input from a career coach.

Content and styling

Keep it simple. A formal and conservative, or neutral approach tends to be best for the layout of your CV/Resume, otherwise it becomes complicated, cluttered and also subjective – what you may like another person may not.

The more you make use of different styles bold, italics, underline, different font styles and sizes, upper / lower case, use of colour, different indentations or inserting logos the greater the chances that the presentation of your CV will look messy.

The only exception to this would be, in some not all instances, those people working in creative occupations such as professional designers.

A common mistake applicants make is to try to say too much. This results in a CV which is heavy on the eye, and difficult to read.

Heavy on the eye, meaning there’s most of the screen is taken up with text or there’s lots of ink on the page. To elaborate, heavy on the eye would include a page with few line breaks, with narrow borders between text and the side of the page, and or the use of small text sizes which can be hard to read.

Most people reviewing CVs will have only a limited amount of time to spend on each one. If your CV is heavily populated with text the reader won’t be able to see the wood for the trees – you’ve said so much they can’t see the things they really want to read. Make sure your CV Resume has plenty of white space.

Profiles

Most people write meaningless profiles using descriptions about their experience and/or skills to describe themselves. They say things which anyone could say about themselves and which would apply to 90% of the candidates.

You can make your CV more meaningful by using it to say things about yourself which you can’t say elsewhere in the CV, and/or taking the opportunity to show how any aspect of your background meets their particular needs i.e. to align your CV with a particular job application.

So tailor your profile with the needs of the job. Highlight achievements, accomplishments and facts and figures which substantiate your credentials.

You may also wish to use the profile as an opportunity to state the kind of position you are seeking or say something about your personality or motivation which equips you to excel in a particular role, but make sure this matches the position which is on offer, otherwise it would be pointless.

People working at or who have worked in your immediate marketplace, i.e. companies competing with your own, may be familiar with your employer/s lines of business. However, others may be in the dark particularly people with little or no experience in your marketplace who however, may be influence selection or indeed some people may have a misperception of the line of business of a particular company.

Make your CV Resume relevant to the jobs for which you are applying.

If the reader of your CV is not familiar with the line of business you have been working in, they are far less likely to be able to recognise the value you may bring to them.

People making decisions as to who is invited in for interview will normally face a choice of many applicants. If they cannot see from your CV/resume how you are suited to the role, you may be missing out on invites to interviews for jobs for which you may be well qualified.

Our recommendation is that you have a “master CV Resume” and that you copy, and tailor this for the particular applications you make.

The more significant and recent the better. People are most interested in what you have done in the last three-five years and much less so 10 years ago. They want to hire people who have been successful recently and who are successful right now.

When choosing what accomplishments and achievements to include, you need to choose those which are most likely to be relevant to the job for which you are applying, show you in your best light and with a positive balance – i.e. your performance has been consistently strong, or that on average you have met expectations. There is no point in giving facts showing you have repeatedly failed.

Ideally the reader of your CV will be crystal clear about your experience and skills.

If you are including technical terminology combine this with a plain English expression so that someone familiar with your specific skills can recognise them, but that it’s also understandable to anyone else reading it.

Even someone knowledgeable in your field may not be familiar with some particular terminology with which you may have gained experience.

This is increasingly important because of web based searches on on-line networks like Linkedin where searches are commonly done using “key” words.

Furthermore, often the process of short-listing candidates for interview is delegated, and when this happens it would be usual for people instructed to look for key words about job functions/titles, industry sectors and critical experience / skill areas.

The current preference for the majority of readers of a CV Resume is for two pages CVs.

A single page CV can be fine for someone with limited work history perhaps your son, daughter, nephew or niece for most execs there is a good chance it will be interpreted as being too brief.

The consensus regarding CV of 4 or more pages, is negative.

Too much information, too much trivia and the view is that your CV is out of date. You need to be seen as being someone who is up to date, someone who is current and you should avoid coming across as being out of date.

Your digital footprint!

For professional types, managerial and exec level appointments, there’s a good chance as soon as your in contention — your name has been suggested for the role, you are being talked about by the selection panel or someone’s reading your CV — that they’ll check you out on Linkedin! Perhaps your Facebook and google search your digital footprint too.
You need a good photo, one in which you are smiling and look professional.
Make sure your Linkedin profile doesn’t compromise you. Have someone look at it for any typos, spelling or grammatical mistakes. And does it align with your career goals.
If you have an open Facebook, does this show you in a professional light or otherwise compromise your candidacy.
Projecting an image which is happy, positive, friendly, healthy, energizing, successful and responsible are going to be seen in the best light.

Probably the biggest mistake anyone can make in writing their CV is not to get it checked over by somebody else who you trust. We all make mistakes and two heads are better than one when it comes to spotting them. So be sure to have someone look over your CV Resume.

You may wish to consider having a professional CV Resume writer help you transform your CV Resume and help position you at 100% of your potential.

If you’re in-between jobs, up for promotion or interviewing for a life-changing new job. You can expect the competition to be tough, promotional opportunities or special new jobs are often few and far between. Sometimes you’ve got to go the additional distance to make the most of your chances when much is at stake: securing a new job, promotion, salary increases or negotiations.

What next?

The content you choose to include in your CV Resume, your choice of words and phrases will set an impression on the reader as being of a high standard, strictly average or of poor quality!

You may wish to engage the services of a professional CV Resume writer, with meaningful and relevant content, together with the right choice of words and phrases you can present yourself as being an “A” player.

A CV Resume writer can work with you to develop a CV Resume which presents you at 100% of what you are.

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About Intelligent Executive

Most executives make the mistake of thinking because they are smart, they have the aptitude to properly exploit and develop their career opportunity.

However senior you are, you need to invest time on an on-going basis in developing your own career interests and whilst there are plenty of out-dated books, an abundance of information on the net and a bombardment of digital sound bites none of which provides you with a 360 degree, joined up, perspective.

Intelligent Executive is the first to bridge this gap.

Intelligent Executive is a portal to help semi-professionals, professionals, managers, senior managers and CXO level executives fulfill their career potential.